Loyalist Township is an amalgamation of the former Townships of Ernestown and Amherst Island and the Village of Bath. Loyalist Township faces the sparkling waters of Lake Ontario which borders its pockets of settlement – Amherstview, Millhaven, Amherst Island and Bath. The quaint villages of Bath, Odessa and Wilton offer a glimpse of history, while thriving industries, such as LaFarge, carry the community into the future.

Ernestown Township was named after Prince Ernest Augustus, eighth child of King George III. In the early 1800’s a number of mills were powered by Millhaven and Wilton Creeks. By 1811, the township of Ernestown was the largest in the province (Frank Edwards, The Smiling Wilderness). The Asselstine woollen mill, established in Odessa in 1840, was dismantled and re-located to the historic Upper Canada Village at Morrisburg in 1958

The Village of Bath, a major centre in Upper Canada, was well connected with its access to boats and stagecoach travel. In 1869, historian William Canniff claimed, “Bath rivalled even Kingston itself in regard to rapid increase of inhabitants, the establishment of trades, building of ships and from the presence of gentlemen of refinement and education.” Prominent entrepreneurs included Henry Finkle and William Fairfield. The Fairfield legacy is kept alive in the Fairfield House at Amherstview and the Fairfield-Gutzeit House in Bath.

The Loyalist Parkway, Waterfront Trail, Loyalist Golf & Country Club Community in Bath, the tranquillity and bird watching opportunities of Amherst Island, family farms, antique shops, libraries and artisan studios, century farms and homesteads side by side with contemporary homes and businesses, beckon visitors and welcome new residents.